POLITICIANS should desist from spreading falsehoods about the electoral process as the dangers of such rumours leading to violence in the aftermath of an election such as the August 11 polls are too ghastly to contemplate.

Our politicians, especially those recognised as veterans, should all the time do thorough research before presenting information to the public to avoid being misunderstood.

It has, however, become fashionable nowadays for every Jim and Jack to wake up and walk into a newsroom and give the most outrageous statement all in an effort to gain political mileage.

The current debate about the Dubai-based company that printed pre-marked ballot papers for the Uganda presidential election is a case in point.

While it is true that Ms Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing House was awarded a tender to print ballot papers, it was not for the presidential vote.

Paarl Media, a South Africa-based printing company was awarded the tender to print ballot papers for presidential, parliamentary and district women councillor in Uganda.

Two other companies, TALL Security Print Ltd of the UK and Picface Industries of Uganda, printed ballots for district chairpersons, district directly-elected councillors and sub-county women councillors and municipality mayors, municipality councillors and special interest group councillors respectively.

Ms Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing House of Dubai was contracted to print ballots for district chairpersons, district directly-elected councillors and sub-county women councillors elections.

Therefore, if there were pre-marked ballot papers found in Uganda at presidential election then the source was definetly.

Again, these are allegations which need proving before anybody can authoritatively speak about pre-marked ballot.

Surprisingly, our politicians who are speaking about vote manipulation know the process of arriving at a printer for election in Zambia.

This has been going on for over 20 years since Zambia reverted to multi-party democracy.

The Electoral Commission of Zambia floats a tender as a way of inviting bidders.

Zambian and foreign companies are all invited to submit bids.

In the case of ECZ, this was done soon after the President assented to the amended Constitution which prescribed August 11 as the date for the general elections.

At that time, not a single political party expressed fears over some of the companies which are involved in the printing of pre-marked ballot papers.

We doubt whether those speaking the loudest now ever bothered to investigate companies which submitted bids with the view to exposing their alleged mischievous business dealings in.

The whistle-blowers should know that companies do not win tenders because of the country they are domiciled.

It is meeting the conditions of the bidding firm which in this case is the Electoral Commission of Zambia.

The August 11 elections are so important that ECZ cannot risk awarding a tender to a company which will fail to deliver on time and to required printing and security standard.

If indeed the ECZ preferred company to print the August 11 ballot papers cannot deliver, the whistle-blowers are free to submit evidence instead of making allegations in newspapers to prepare the minds of the people to reject the outcome.